BN Daybreak: Mashaba, Zille weigh in on Joburg standoff - plus Dr Iraj Abedian on the ANC's slide

I know it was an issue that was an issue not only for me, for our entire party. In an interview with Alec Cogg, Helen Zille said any bitterness between her and Mashaba comes from his side and made a point that the DA is the only party to gain seats in Johannesburg. The full video is on biznews.com. How personal is it? Because I had a conversation this morning with Herman Mashaba, who reiterated.

Again, that ActionSA will not support the DA if you are the mayor or candidate. Well, you know, it's personal from Herman's side, and then somehow people make it a moral equivalence. I've never had a bad word to say about Herman publicly. There's absolutely no negativity or rancor or vendetta coming from my side at all. We've had our differences at times on matters of very important principle, but that happens all the time.

In politics, and people can't carry that bitterness on for more than a decade. He says, though, that he there's so much toxicity between the two of you from his perspective that he would rather step back and he wants you to step back as well. Well, let me just say between the two of you basically means that it's coming from both sides, which it isn't. And just imagine this, Alec. I mean, the very fact that people ask me this question makes me chuckle. Because just imagine if the DA had got 16

And Herman had led the party that got 35%. And we said our condition is that the person for whom 35% of Johannesburg voted may not be the mayor. That would just be absurd. And no one would actually even entertain that. Because what Herman is saying is his rancor is more important than the voters of Joburg. And then he calls.

Us arrogant. You see, there's a lot of very interesting stuff going on here. And that journalists actually even entertain that argument illustrates to me that they will bend over backwards to make people appear rational in contexts where they clearly aren't. But they would never do that for the DA, of course. There's a serious double standard. Yeah, but politics, wow.